Indian Ink

Book excerpt: From Tony Award-winning playwright Tom Stoppard, Indian Ink is a rich and moving portrait of intimate lives set against one of the great shafts of history—the emergence of the Indian subcontinent from the grip of Europe. The play follows free-spirited English poet Flora Crewe on her travels through India in the 1930s, where her intricate relationship with an Indian artist unfurls against the backdrop of a country seeking its independence. Fifty years later, in 1980s England, her younger sister Eleanor attempts to preserve the legacy of Flora’s controversial career, while Flora’s would-be biographer is following a cold trail in India. Fresh from the critically acclaimed off-Broadway performance in 2014, Indian Ink is reemerging as an important part of Stoppard’s oeuvre and the global dramatic canon, a fascinating, time-hopping masterwork.